Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, Henryk Sienkiewicz [top reads .TXT] 📗

he hesitated what to do; for uncertainty, and even fear, had been creeping into his soul for some time. His flock was scattered; the work was wrecked; that church, which before the burning of the city had been flourishing like a splendid tree, was turned into dust by the power of the “Beast.” Nothing remained save tears, nothing save memories of torture and death. The sowing had yielded rich fruit, but Satan had trampled it into the earth. Legions of angels had not come to aid the perishing,—and Nero was extending in glory over the earth, terrible, mightier than ever, the lord of all seas and all lands. More than once had that fisherman of the Lord stretched his hands heavenward in loneliness and asked: “Lord, what must I do? How must I act? And how am I, a feeble old man, to fight with this invincible power of Evil, which Thou hart permitted to rule, and have victory?”

And he called out thus in the depth of his immense pain, repeating in spirit: “Those sheep which Thou didst command me to feed are no more, Thy church is no more; loneliness and mourning are in Thy capital; what dost Thou command me to do now? Am I to stay here, or lead forth the remnant of the flock to glorify Thy name in secret somewhere beyond the sea?”

And he hesitated, He believed that the living truth would not perish, that it must conquer; but at moments he thought that the hour had not come yet, that it would come only when the Lord should descend to the earth in the day of judgment in glory and power a hundred times greater than the might of Nero.

Frequently it seemed to him that if he left Rome, the faithful would follow; that he would lead them then far away to the shady groves of Galilee, to the quiet surface of the Lake of Tiberias, to shepherds as peaceful as doves, or as sheep, who feed there among thyme and pepperwort. And an increasing desire for peace and rest, an increasing yearning for the lake and Galilee, seized the heart of the fisherman; tears came more frequently to the old man’s eyes.

But at the moment when he made the choice, sudden alarm and fear came on him. How was he to leave that city, in which so much martyrs’ blood had sunk into the earth, and where so many lips had given the true testimony of the dying? Was he alone to yield? And what would he answer the Lord on hearing the words, “These have died for the faith, but thou didst flee”?

Nights and days passed for him in anxiety and suffering. Others, who had been torn by lions, who had been fastened to crosses, who had been burnt in the gardens of Cæsar, had fallen asleep in the Lord after moments of torture; but he could not sleep, and he felt greater tortures than any of those invented by executioners for victims. Often was the dawn whitening the roofs of houses while he was still crying from the depth of his mourning heart: “Lord, why didst Thou command me to come hither and found Thy capital in the den of the ‘Beast’?”

For thirty-three years after the death of his Master he knew no rest. Staff in hand, he had gone through the world and declared the “good tidings.” His strength had been exhausted in journeys and toil, till at last, when in that city, which was the head of the world, he had established the work of his Master, one bloody breath of wrath had burned it, and he saw that there was need to take up the struggle anew. And what a struggle! On one side Cæsar, the Senate, the people, the legions holding the world with a circle of iron, countless cities, countless lands,—power such as the eye of man had not seen; on the other side he, so bent with age and toil that his trembling hand was hardly able to carry his staff.

At times, therefore, he said to himself that it was not for him to measure with the Cæsar of Rome,—that Christ alone could do that.

All these thoughts were passing through his care-filled head, when he heard the prayers of the last handful of the faithful. They, surrounding him in an ever narrowing circle, repeated with voices of entreaty,—

“Hide thyself, Rabbi, and lead us away from the power of the ‘Beast.’”

Finally Linus also bowed his tortured head before him.

“O lord,” said he, “the Redeemer commanded thee to feed His sheep, but they are here no longer or to-morrow they will not be here; go, therefore, where thou mayst find them yet. The word of God is living still in Jerusalem, in Antioch, in Ephesus, and in other cities. What wilt thou do by remaining in Rome? If thou fall, thou wilt merely swell the triumph of the ‘Beast.’ The Lord has not designated the limit of John’s life; Paul is a Roman citizen, they cannot condemn him without trial; but if the power of hell rise up against thee, O teacher, those whose hearts are dejected will ask, ‘Who is above Nero?’ Thou art the rock on which the church of God is founded. Let us die, but permit not the victory of Antichrist over the viceregent of God, and return not hither till the Lord has crushed him who shed innocent blood.”

“Look at our tears!” repeated all who were present.

Tears flowed over Peter’s face too. After a while he rose, and, stretching his hands over the kneeling figures, said,—

“May the name of the Lord be magnified, and may His will be done!”